Curated OER
Floating Fishes: How do Fishes Control Buoyancy?
Playing with balloons, water, oil, and bottles help put this lesson over the top! Participants use air-filled balloons in water tanks to experience gas compression. They also use oil-filled bottles to experiment with buoyancy. Included...
Foundation for Water & Energy Education
Perpetual Flow Activity
Set up a demonstration of how gravity can drive the perpetual flow of water during your hydro power unit. Science learners work in teams to make observations and formulate questions about how it works. They compare the model to what they...
Curated OER
Water Pressure Experiments
Students perform experiments measuring water pressure. They record their observations after poking holes in plastic bottles filled with water with the lids on and then off. They discover the role gravity plays in the water flow.
Curated OER
Water and Ice
Students participate in various air experiments to understand that air is all around us. In this states of matter lesson, students focus on the role of air in the water cycle. Students understand that air is densest near the ground....
Curated OER
Exploring Buoyancy
Learners use materials found at a resource table to design simple devices that will house instruments to take water samples from a tub of water. They design 3 instruments, each varying in density so that one will float, one will hover...
Curated OER
Water Power
Students explore how a water turbine operates and observe the principles of the water turbine. They account for the speed of the water turbine by various experiments and records of test results. In groups the students create a working...
Curated OER
Air and Water in the Environment
Students demonstrate an awareness of air as a substance that surrounds us and takes up space, and whose movement we feel as wind. They predict and describe how local weather conditions affect living things, including themselves.
Curated OER
Locks and Dams
Students learn about locks and dams when it comes to blocking water. In this dam lesson, students learn about the structure, function, and purpose of locks and dams. They also learn about water pressure and gravity.
University of Southern California
Design and Test an Air Lift Siphon
Build an air lift siphon using your mad physics skills! Learners first investigate the importance of circulating water in aquaponics systems. They then use density to their advantage as they engineer an air lift siphon
Curated OER
Siphon Pump
Pupils determine the basic types of pumps and how they work in terms of pressure, velocity, and elevation differences. They build two examples of gravity-driven water pumps.
Curated OER
Pumps
Middle schoolers examine the basic types of pumps. They build a gravity-driven water pump and solve a mystery using their knowledge of pressures and pumps.
Curated OER
Air: Demonstrating Its Presence and Effects
Students explore the concept of air. In this gravity instructional activity, students perform various experiments that deal with gravity, air resistance, and air pressure.
PHET
Planet Designer: Martian Makeover
Mars used to have liquid water, can you make it come back? Use the lesson and simulation to understand why Mars lost its magnetic field, why atmosphere is important, and what gravity has to do with it. This is the third lesson...
Teach Engineering
What Floats Your Boat?
Clay's as good a material as any to build a boat, right? An introductory lesson sets the stage for two activities associated with buoyancy. The first involves building boats out of clay, while the second uses these boats to measure the...
Curated OER
Ice Floats
Learners explore the changing density of water. In this physics lesson, students investigate how an object's density determines whether it will float or sink in water. They explain why this unique property of is important to living things.
Curated OER
Spin Stabilization
Students investigate methods used by aeronautical engineers to keep rockets on target. After exploring the center of gravity and the center of pressure, students build water rockets. Students use various methods to design fins on the...
Curated OER
Glacier Flow
Young scholars investigate how glaciers flow through valleys. They answer discussion questions, and in small groups create a simulation of a glacier using a plastic shoe box, water, cornstarch, and pebbles, evaluating their results on a...
Curated OER
What Floats Your Boat?
Students discover the Archimedes principle through a buoyancy experiment. They measure the water displacement of a lump a clay which is denser than water then reshape the clay into a bowl which floats but displaces more water.
Curated OER
The Air Up There!
Learners create a model of a column of air and discover one of the reasons why low and high pressure systems exist and why low pressure is often associated with bad weather.
Curated OER
The Buoyancy Factor
Students examine why some objects float in water while others sink and the ability of something to float does not depend entirely on its weight. Archimedes' principle is introduced and buoyant force is discussed. Practice calculations...
Curated OER
Physical Properties of Ice
Young scholars explore the different properties of ice. They make predictions and experment with ice. Students discover that ice melts faster under pressure. Young scholars create a flipbook what what happened after each experiment. ...
Curated OER
Glacier Climbing
Students discuss glaciers and the current distribution of glaciers around the Earth. They create simulated glaciers using cornstarch, shoeboxes, water, and pebbles.
Center for Precollegiate Education and Training
Buoyancy Boats
What did the sea say to the boat? Nothing, it just waved. An inquiry-based lesson starts with a simple concept on the Archimedes Principle and challenges pupils to make something out of clay that floats. Then, they design...
Curated OER
Rocket Me into Space
Students engage in a instructional activity that reinforces rockets as a vehicle that helps us explore outside the Earth's atmosphere by using the principles of Newton's third law of motion. Also, the principles that engineers deal with...